t matter what you allow with John
Dene. If you agree with him he just grunts; if you don't he says
'shucks,' or else he questions whether you've got any head-filling."

"Any what?" asked Mrs. West.

"Head-filling, that means brains. Oh, you've got an awful lot to
learn," she added, nodding at her mother in mock despair. "I think
John Dene very clever," she added.

"Dorothy, you mustn't call him 'John Dene."

"He's always called 'John Dene,'" said Dorothy. "You can't think of
him as anything but John Dene, and do you know, mother, all the other
girls are so intrigued. They're always asking me how I get on with
'the bear,' as they call him. That's because he doesn't take any
notice of them, except Marjorie Rogers, and she's as cheeky as a robin."

"But he isn't a bear, is he, Dorothy?"

"A bear? He's the most polite creature that ever existed," said
Dorothy--"when he remembers it," she added after a moment's pause.
"You see they all expect me to marry him."

"Dorothy!"

"I'm not so sure that they're wrong, either," she added naively. "You
see, he's got plenty of money and----"

"I don't like to hear you talk like that, dear," said Mrs. West gravely.

"Oh, I'm horrid, aren't I?" she cried, running over to her mother and
putting her arm round her neck. "What a dreadful thing it must be for
you, poor mother mine, to have such a daughter! She outrages all the
dear old Victorian conventions, doesn't she?"

"You mustn't talk like that, Dorothy dear," said Mrs. West. There was
in her voice that which told her daughter she was in earnest.

"All right, mother dear, I won't; you know my bark is worse than my
bite, don't you?"

"Yes, but dear----"

"You see, way down, as John Dene would say, in his own heart there is
chivalry, and that is very, very rare nowadays among men. He is much
nicer to me than he would be to Lady Grayne, or Mrs. Llewellyn John, or
to the Queen herself, I believe. I'm sure he likes me," added Dorothy
half to herself. "You see," she added, "he broke my teapot, and he
owes me something for that, doesn't he?"

"Dorothy, you are very naughty." There was no rebuke in Mrs. West's
voice.

"And you're wondering how it came about that such a dear, sweet,
conventional, lovely, Victorian symbol of respectability and convention
should have had such a dreadfully outrageous daughter as Dorothy West.
Now confess, mother, aren't you?"

Mrs. West merely smiled the indulgent smile that Doro